


Burden of Her Arms

by Ne_Obliviscaris



Series: Mischief and Honey [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Women, F/M, Family, Fate & Destiny, Magical Inheritance, Missing Persons, Misunderstandings, On the Run, Romance, SHIELD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 11:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12793863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ne_Obliviscaris/pseuds/Ne_Obliviscaris
Summary: When Loki goes missing and SHIELD begins to close in, Sigrid finds refuge with unlikely allies. And she has one more person to worry about.  Takes place a year and a half after the events of Fire and Honey. Note: this was written years ago and canon from movies after The Avengers does not apply here.





	1. Missing in the Snow

_There is a very old story in which Loki and Sigyn are married. Having gone too far in "a bit of fun," the gods had imprisoned Loki, setting over him a serpent whose fangs dripped poison into his eyes. Sigyn, out of her deep love for her husband, stationed herself beside him, catching the poison in a bowl. But bowls have bottoms and when she goes to empty it, poison falls into Loki's eyes. It is said that his resulting agony is responsible for the earthquakes of Midgard. Loki's sentence is forever, though it is prophesied he will gain his freedom prior to Ragnorak. Sigyn's self-imposed sentence, therefore, is forever, and she accepts it gladly for the sake of her beloved._

_This is why another name for Loki is "The Burden of Sigyn's Arms". Sigrid thinks of this story often._

#

I awoke knowing something was wrong. I had been dreaming a warm, comforting dream. It often came to me, this past month. I dreamed of Loki and I laid curled up together on the couch, a fire crackling in the hearth before us. We did not speak or touch each other intimately. We simply held each other. And I had the sense of a deep satisfaction and joy as if we had passed through a great trial together.

But when I awoke that morning, that feeling of warmth left quickly. Rolling onto my side, I reached for my husband, but his side of the bed was cold. I sat up, feeling apprehensive.

Something was terribly wrong.

Throwing off the quilt, I swung my legs over and stuffed my feet into my bedroom slippers. The air had a bite to it and threw on my fleece robe as I left the bedroom.

"Loki?" I called into the darkness of our home.

No answer came. Feeble light streamed through the windows. It was snowing, the first fall of the year.

Loki adored the cold. Could he be outside? But what nonsense, though. He had learned early on that he wasn't immune to the cold as he once was. He was human, now, and humans didn't take well to the cold. But I went to the back door and looked out.

The snow had covered everything in a pristine sheet of white. I could see the lumps of my bee houses, my friends fast asleep in their hives. Sudden fear washed over me.

If my bees were asleep, then I could not track Loki's movements. But, no, I had other spells cast on our property. If he were to cross our boundary lines, I would know, and it would be more than waking up uneasy. I would immediately be transported there to stop him. It wasn't the most elegant solution. For instance, when Loki had discovered the spell, he purposefully waited until I was in the shower before running out and crossing a boundary line. The little trickster laughed so hard at seeing me wet, soapy, and naked in the middle of the forest, he almost made himself sick.

Despite myself, I smiled a little at the memory, especially since Loki went out of his way to "make up for it".

I couldn't make out any tracks in the snow, which seemed to have been falling for at least an hour before I awoke. Maybe he had gone out for a walk, after all, and was just slow in coming back? But that explanation did not sit well with me. I decided to play it safe and went back into the bedroom to dress.

We had been living in our little cottage in the English countryside for over a year. In that time, Loki had schooled me in magic as best he could, and I learned by leaps and bounds. It wasn't long before I could reach into a fire without harming myself, though I was a long way off from making things from a hearth fire, as my ancestress had done. Though Loki tried to be a devoted husband, a thorough teacher, and a good provider (he worked in the library in the local village), he still became restless. Hence the idea of him leaving in the wee hours of the morning to go for a walk wasn't that far-fetched. But it was well below freezing outside and Loki would not spend long in it.

Once I was dressed warmly, I took a flashlight and trudged out to the stables. Both horses slept in their piles of hay. Ember looked up at me a moment before dropping his head back down to sleep. It took a lot of doing, getting him to the cottage after we had made our escape. I worried for a whole month afterward that we had caught Fury's attention, but we hadn't. How I could only chalk up to Eartha's former "colleagues".

Leaving the stable, I paused in the yard, looking around. "Charles," I yelled, using his human name because of the neighbors.

But no answer came. I went back inside, trying not to worry, and put on a pot of coffee. As I puttered around the kitchen, making a light breakfast, I gradually noticed several staples were missing. The box of bottled water had been opened and several of the bottles were gone. Cans of meat, packets of cheese, and other things were also gone, though I could have sworn we had bought them during our last trip to the village.

My stomach cramped with a growing sense of horror. I nearly ran back into the bedroom, yanking open Loki's closet door and flipping on the light. Pushing back the clothing hanging there, I tried to find his camping gear. But it was gone.

"No," I said. "Oh, no."

Running back outside, I went out again to the stables to saddle Ember. It was still dark out and I conjured a witchflame to see by. I sent it ahead as I sent Ember into a canter. Witchflames could be hard to maintain and I knew I would pay for it later. But the only thing that mattered was finding Loki. I believed he loved me too much to abandon me or to do something that would lead to my execution, and so that only left tragedy. Had Fury found us at last?

I rode Ember all the way to the very edge of our property to a river. I looked around, trying to reconcile how Loki could disappear without tripping my wards.

"Charles!" I yelled. The snow muffled my voice. "Loki!"

But no answer came. Shivering, I turned Ember and began riding around the perimeter of our property. The sun had already crested the tree line by the time I got home and I was so cold when I dismounted, I thought I would shatter like ice if I moved too quickly. After putting Ember away, I went back inside, half-hoping to find Loki at the table with a cup of tea or coffee cradled in his hands, wanting to know where I'd been all morning.

But the house was empty and the smell in the air told me the coffee had scorched. I absentmindedly turned off the machine, reminding myself to buy something more modern next time I was in the village.

Panic fluttered in my gut like a trapped butterfly. My fingers and face tingled as the life returned to them and I began to shake.

 _He wouldn't_ , I thought.  _He wouldn't leave me. He wouldn't just go. He loves me. He wouldn't do anything to put me in danger. He wouldn't. He loves me._

I just kept repeating it to myself over and over as the bitter copper of fear filled my mouth. Slowly, it receded, my heart slowed, and I stopped trembling. He would come home, with a funny story and I would shore up my wards. Perhaps there had been a hole somewhere.

I made myself go through the usual rituals of the morning but with one ear out for Loki's footfall or his voice. But neither came. I stood at the back door, looking out. The snow had stopped and the sun was out. The light bounced off the snow, reflecting like crushed diamonds.

"Where are you?" I whispered.

The phone on the wall rang and I jumped. Grimacing at my own foolishness. I picked it up and said, "Hello?"

"They're coming," said a gruff voice.

"Wh-what?"

"This is Sig, ain't it?"

"Yes."

"They're coming. You have three hours."

And he hung up.

My stomach clenched as I hung up the phone. It was a signal, arranged when Eartha's friends made sure we were squared away. They would keep their eyes and ears out and if Fury ever go close, they would call. Loki would always shrug it off if I brought it up, but I had lived in fear of this day. She even went as far as making a sketchy plan of what we would do. Loki had listened, approved it, but I never could shake the feeling that he hadn't taken me seriously.

Now the call had finally come. And he wasn't here. Loki was gone and I didn't know what to do.


	2. Of Frozen Rivers and Airports

Loki dragged himself from the river, throwing the backpack in front of him. Shivering so hard his teeth rattled, he curled into a ball and rocked back and forth as he tried to catch his breath. He needed to get warm.

Forcing himself upright, he opened the backpack and searched until he pulled out a Ziplock bag containing matches. He stumbled up the bank and gathered firewood. It took three tries before he got the fire going. He smiled wryly as he rubbed his hands over the burgeoning flames. Once upon a time, he knew neither cold or hunger or fatigue. But now he crouched by an icy river, shivering from cold, exhausted, and hoping he had brought enough food. How far, indeed, had the god of mischief and mayhem had fallen.

Loki looked at the watch on his wrist. He had gone into the water early in the morning and was now far from home.

 _Home_.

Home was a tiny cottage with stables, a garden, honey bees, and a beautiful woman named Sigrid. His sweet Sigrid. Sigrid trusted him and looked to him for advice. To her, he was teacher, lover, and husband. But it was more than that.

He saw it in her eyes when she thought he didn't see and heard it in her tone of voice when she fretted over the future. At those moments, all he could see or hear was the need to protect her and to unravel the mess he had made of her life. They couldn't go to London without spending a whole day talking about possible scenarios, working on spells that would help, and coming up with escape plans.

He knew he could not ask her to leave or stop loving him. The only option, then, was for him to take the drastic step. That was why he had waited until winter had lulled the bees to sleep and why he had used the river to bypass her wards. And he hadn't told her his plan because...

"She would have tried to stop me," he whispered.

And Odin? Loki was confident he wasn't doing anything that would provoke his adoptive father into acting against Sigrid. He was merely hurrying up the inevitable confrontation. He was going to hit something head on for once in his life.

He looked up at the sky, wondering if he could travel some more in the river. No. Though he still had his immortality, he felt all the pains and strains any human would. He was tired and hungry and he needed to rest. He added a little more wood to the fire and began to strip off his wet clothing. If his calculations were right, he wasn't far from a city.

And then, tomorrow, he had a phone call to make.

#

I stepped into the mob swirling through Heathrow. Adjusting my shoulder bag, I got in line to check in and get my ticket.

The last few hours were a blur. I had made the split-second decision that I would do Loki no good if I was tucked away in a SHIELD cell in some underground bunker. He knew where I would be going, at any rate. After a few frantic calls to make sure someone would take in the mail and tend to the horses, I had thrown myself into the car to drive to famous Heathrow airport. Even now, SHIELD was probably tearing my home apart, looking for me.

The line moved at a snail's pace and I looked around, bored. A black haired man in a tailored suit slipped through the main doors. I barely caught his face but I didn't think twice about it. There were many men in fine suits rushing about the airport. The line moved forward a foot. Nausea rolled over me and I swallowed back bitter bile. I had been feeling ready to throw up for a while.

I glanced at my watch. I would be arriving in New York City in the early hours of the morning. The temptation to check into a hotel was strong but I knew it would be wiser to get a rental car with my fake ID and begin the 12-hour-plus drive.

"Going somewhere, Miss Skarsgard?"

I jumped, turning.

Tony Stark crooked a cocky half-smile. "Don't make a scene," he said. "Just come with us."

"I don't need to make a scene," I replied, waving my hand. He sighed and buttoned his suit coat when I faded from his sight. The person that had been standing behind me yelped.

I turned and began to stride toward the front door. I didn't make it halfway there before Steve Rogers was blocking my way, a pair of heat-sensing goggles strapped to his face. He grabbed my arm.

"Sigrid," he said, "you need to come with us."

"I don't think so." I let myself come back into view and with another flick of power, caused the water sprinklers and fire alarm to go off. People yelled and scrambled, pushing toward the doors.

The thing about being a so-called goddess is the gift of great strength. Loki, when he still had his powers, could have broken a tree in half with a single kick, and would have shocked the hell out of a lot of people since so many mistakenly thought only Thor had great strength. From the way Steve was gripping my arm, he was one of those foolish people.

I turned and slammed my foot against his shin while using my free hand to slap down on his wrist, breaking his hold. Steve yelled, shifting his weight off his wounded leg. Grabbing his arm, I pivoted and used his imbalance to throw him over my shoulder. By now, the airport had mostly cleared.

I pointed at Steve and said, "Sleep."

He went slack, his eyes closing, and I turned to run through the doors. Tony Stark, in the Iron Man suit, stepped forward to block my way. The sprinklers stopped and I wiped water from my eyes.

"Sigrid," he said, "don't make me hurt you."

"I just slapped Captain America around like he was a skinny kid from Brooklyn. You honestly think you're going to stop me?"

Tony didn't answer, only held up one of his hands, the stabilizer glowing in his palm. I strode up to him and, with a whine, he blasted a pulse of energy towards me. I took it in the chest, throwing me across the room and slamming me through one of the counters. The floor vibrated as Tony walked across the room toward me. Coughing, I scrambled up, leaving my shoulder bag on the ground.

"That the best you got?" I said. Pointing at him, I called up a gale to throw him away from me.

He leaned into the wind, throwing his arms back, using his stabilizers to push him forward step by step. I waited a few moments, then dropped the wind. Tony didn't have time to compensate for the sudden lack of resistance. His own momentum threw him forward and I ducked, letting him sail over me, through the wall, and into the next room.

I grabbed my bag and ran towards the main doors. Just as I passed Steve, he rolled and grabbed my leg. He yanked, pulling me to the ground. I rolled onto my back, raising my foot to break his face, when I heard Tony yell, "We're not with SHIELD!"

I stopped. "What?"

"He's right," said Rogers. "We left SHIELD. We're here to help you."

"How do I know this isn't some trick?"

"You don't."

"That's not nearly as convincing as movies make it out to be. How about I just beat the crap out of you, blast Tony into another dimension, and then go on my merry way?"

"You've gotten a temper since last I saw you."

"I've always had this temper. I'm just not that good at hiding it, anymore."

"This from living with the god of mischief?"

I felt the blood drain from my face. "He's dead. I told Fury that."

Tony had come to stand a few feet away, the face plate open. "They found you, Sigrid. There are pictures. We know he's alive. We know you've been hiding him. Just take us to him and we'll keep you safe from Fury."

"Bullshit. All of this."

"No." Steve shook his head. "Do you honestly think I would keep working for Nick Fury after I learned about what he did?"

When the Avengers had captured Loki, Fury used him like a living battery pack to jumpstart my transformation from weakling mortal to Norse goddess. It nearly killed Loki in the process and so enraged Thor that he broke all diplomatic ties with the Avengers. Last I heard, he was still in Asgard doing whatever it was Thor did when he wasn't polishing his hammer.

The earnest look on Steve's face, combined with what I knew of his character, caused me to lower my foot and sit up. "All right," I said. "I'm listening."

"Um," said Tony, "we'll need to finish this somewhere else. Looks like the cavalry is arriving."

Looking over my shoulder, I saw a line of police cars and emergency responders driving up to the main doors. Steve let go of my foot and, after I stood, I helped him to his feet.

"Can you walk?" I asked.

"Uh, kind of."

"I got ya." Tony picked Steve, cradling him like a baby. "This way to the nearest threshold."

We ran through the airport, surprising a lot of people who didn't evacuate when the alarm system went off. Tony led us through a private terminal and to his jet, where Happy waited at the top of the stairs

"Ready, sir?" Happy asked as we bounded up the stairs.

"That would be an affirmative," Tony said as we rushed past his assistant/driver/whatever.

Tony dropped Steve into a seat and I sat across from him, buckling in. Tony got out of his suit incredibly quickly and was just sitting down as the private jet began to taxi down the runway. Tony looked out of a window.

"Looks like the authorities are trying to stop us," he said. Pressing a button, he said, "Faster would be better."

In a matter of minutes, the plane lifted, and we were airborne. As soon as the "buckle seatbelt" light went out, I got out of my seat and knelt by Steve.

"How bad is it?" I asked.

"It hurts," he said. "I don't think anything is broken, though."

I reached into my shoulder bag and drew out a small plastic bottle of honey I always carried with me. Rolling up his pants leg, I smeared some of the honey on the already-swelling shin. He groaned as the heat seeped into his leg and healed him.

"There," I said. "All better."

"Thanks."

"The least I could do since I was the one who did it."

"Well, thanks anyway." And Steve smiled at me, reminding me of that short time when I wondered if he fancied me.

As I returned to my seat, Tony said, "So, where do we go to pick up lover boy?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"Loki is gone and I don't know where."

The two men stared at me. "I'm sorry," said Tony. "I thought you just said you didn't know where the psychotic mischief-maker went."

"One, he isn't psychotic. Two, he doesn't have his powers. And three, yes. I don't know where he is."

"I think," said Steve just as Tony was about to say something sarcastic, "you need to tell us what really happened in Asgard."

Taking a deep breath, I told them about stopping Loki's trial, pleading his case, and convincing Odin to turn him over into my care. I told them about our wedding and how we came to be hidden away in the English countryside.

"So," said Tony, "let me see if I have this straight. You stood up to Odin, who is supposed to be the most powerful thing walking, told him that next time Loki loses his shit you'd take the blame, worse than the blame, even, so he made you two get married and you've been living happily ever after in an English cottage."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Huh. Okay."

"Where do you think he went?" asked Steve.

"To be honest, I have no idea. I thought maybe he had gone for a walk or something, but he never came home. I got a warning that SHIELD had found me, so I decided to initiate our escape plan. I thought that Loki would find me later."

"Where were you headed?"

"A small beach town in Florida. Eartha and Joan live there now."

"Isn't that dangerous? Fury would be watching for them."

"Except that Eartha and Joan faked their deaths and are living under false identities."

"Identities good enough to fool SHIELD?"

"Hopefully."

"Well," said Tony, "this all sounds lovely but we need to figure out where Loki is. You think he got wind of SHIELD coming after you?"

"That's unlikely. And he would have said something."

"Maybe SHIELD already has him," said Steve. "We're going to need to find out."

"And I know just the way." Reaching out, he pressed a button. "Yeah, captain? Change of course."

"Where are we going?" I asked.

Tony gave the name of some obscure airport before letting go of the button and sitting back. "The best way to hide is in plain sight. We're going to go find out what Fury knows."

I nodded as I felt a new wave of nausea wash over me, worse than the last.

"Restroom?" I asked.

"In the back."

I got up and bolted down the airplane, nearly knocking over a stewardess. Once inside the tiny restroom, I threw up.

When I was finished, I was rinsed my mouth and looked at myself in the tiny mirror. I couldn't understand my sudden sickness. Did immortals catch stomach viruses? Besides, I had been feeling fine earlier today. Sure, I had been feeling more tired than usual, and certain body parts were suddenly sore, but I hadn't shown any symptoms of...

And I slapped a hand over my mouth as an idea occurred to me, an idea that, if true, was going to make things a whole lot worse.

 _Loki_ , I thought,  _where are you?_


	3. Surprises and Deals

We landed in a small, private airport on the other side of London. Tony must have used it often because the workers there greeted him with familiarity. Happy secured a car for us and we were taken into the city, to Tony's luxurious flat.

As soon as we got there, Tony and Steve got ready to go. "You stay here," Tony told me. "We'll go have a nice chat with Fury and come back."

"I can go," I insisted. "I can hide my presence."

"Captain All-American here spotted you with a pair of old-fashioned heat sensing goggles. No. You're staying here."

"I can-"

"Sigrid," said Steve quietly. "Loki would want you to stay."

I lifted my chin stubbornly. "You don't even know Loki."

"No, but I know what it's like to be in love." A shadow passed over his face.

I remembered Peggy and felt a pang go through my heart. I nodded, agreeing with him, and the two left me in the flat.

Happy came out of the kitchen. "I can go get you something to eat if you want, miss."

"No, no that's fine. I think I'll go rest."

"There's a guest bedroom down the hall and third door on the left."

"Thanks."

Happy smiled and went back to checking the cupboards for decent victuals (I guess). I found the bedroom and immediately checked to see if the window could open. It did. Once more, Tony and Steve were forgetting the master of illusion was not only my husband but also my teacher. It was the work of a moment to conjure an image of me asleep in the bed, along with a compulsion to leave me that way.

It would have been ideal to transform into a bird and fly out of the window. But that sort of transformation was difficult and delicate work. Though I had been studying and practicing for quite some time, Loki absolutely forbade me from trying it.

"It took a century of practice," he said, "before I dared to change my shape to something of my own size. It was another century before I dared something smaller."

If Loki sincerely counseled caution, it behooved me to listen.

So, instead, I cast a spell to render myself invisible, and another to use the air currents to fly out of the window, floating down to the street below. I melded into the crowd, hunching my shoulders against the bitter cold. I hoped Loki wasn't out in this weather, immortal or not. And even immortals can die. It's just a little harder to accomplish.

After several blocks of walking, I found a pharmacy. Dropping the invisibility and casting an illusion to change my appearance, I entered the small store. The clerk smiled up at me from a tabloid.

"Need any help, miss?" she asked.

I shook my head and wandered through the aisles until I found the pregnancy tests.  _Why do they make so many_ , I wondered as I gazed at the selection. Was one more foolproof than the other?

Suddenly, I felt angry. Loki should have been standing at my shoulder, making quiet jokes about humans and their products. He should be running his hand through his hair, something he did when worried or agitated, and perhaps saying something about the silliness of commercialism. But, no. He was Odin-knew-where and I had to do this alone. With a sigh of frustration, I grabbed a box, took it to the counter, and paid for it.

It was a simple matter of getting back to the flat and nothing looked disturbed when I returned. It was quite possible Happy hadn't checked in on me at all. A bathroom was connected to the guest room.

Like the bedroom, and anything else Stark owned, the bathroom was opulent and luxurious. But I barely did more than a glance before reading the instructions of the test.

 _Simple enough_ , I thought.  _Just pee on one end, wait a couple of minutes, and I'll know whether or not to ask for a crib for Christmas._

It was a good thing I hadn't gone to the bathroom since leaving for Heathrow and had the test "testing" in no time. Going back into the bedroom, I ended the illusion and compulsion overlaying the room and sat on the bed.

Clasping my hands, I stared at them. Loki and I hadn't really talked about children. Of course, the possibility was there. When I brought up the idea of birth control, Loki looked at me askance. Apparently, in Asgard, it was considered unnatural and unhealthy. He said there were ways to time intercourse to keep a pregnancy from happening and we had been practicing that as best we could.

I remembered the last time children almost came up. We were standing in the garden, laying mulch, and I mentioned how much easier this would be with an extra set of "little hands". And then I had frowned, thinking about how unsafe it would be for the child with SHIELD after us. Looking up, I saw Loki looking back at me with a troubled, yet thoughtful, look on his face.

Thoughtful...

"Oh, shit," I said, standing. "Oh, no."

Just as I was about to rush out to find Happy and demand to be taken to wherever the men had gone to see Fury, the timer I had set on my watch went off. My stomach turned over and I thought I was going to throw up again. Taking a deep breath, I went into the bathroom and picked up the test.

 _What do two lines mean?_ , I asked myself, snatching up the box. Pregnant. I was pregnant.

My knees turned to jelly and I slowly sank to the floor, wrapping my arms around my lower stomach. Dashing into danger suddenly seemed less palatable knowing I had someone totally defenseless and dependent living inside me, growing and doing whatever babies so tiny did.

What would the baby even look like? He or she would be half-Frost Giant. Would he be my size or would he grow large? Would he have my eyes but Loki's hair? Would he have Loki's smile but my complexion? Would he be sensible and kind, or mischievous and cruel? Would I live long enough to raise him, or would Fury take him from me at the first possible chance?

Burying my face in my hands, I cried.

#

Tony finished typing in his message and sent it. A few moments later, an appropriately naughty response came back, and he couldn't help but smirk.

"Pepper?" asked Rogers.

"Huh? Oh, yeah."

"I'm still not used to these cell phones."

"Ah, don't worry about it, Cap. You'll just rot your brain."

Steve smiled a little and looked out the window. "What do you think about what Sigrid said? About Loki?"

"That he's different and on the road to redemption?"

"Yeah."

"I think it's a load of bull."

Steve crossed his arms. "You changed. Why can't someone else?"

"Um, because I'm not a sociopath?"

"That's debatable."

Stark shot him a look as he closed up the phone, sticking it in a pocket.

"But if he can't change," continued Steve, "then what are we doing? If we help Sigrid, we're helping Loki."

"Yeah, but we're also stopping Fury. Granted, it's not a win-win scenario but at least there's a 'win' in there. Somewhere."

"But what do you do about Loki?"

"If he doesn't have his powers, he can't do any harm."

"It bothers me that he's missing. That can't be good."

Stark sighed. "No. It can't. That's why we need to be ready."

They lapsed into silence as the car took them the rest of the way to the SHIELD London offices. As they pulled in front of the nondescript building, Tony asked, "Is Coulson still working for Fury?"

"He left. I think he's working for something called Torchwood."

"Ah."

The driver opened the door for them and they climbed out of the car, striding into the building. It looked like a normal office building, with a directory on one wall with names and room numbers. Of course, if anyone went to any of those rooms, they'd be disappointed to find no one home. The two men went into a lift and Tony pressed the button for the basement. Below the button, a panel opened, revealing a thumbprint scanner. Tony pressed the pad of his thumb against it.

After a moment, the scanner turned green. "Welcome, Mr. Stark," said an automated voice. The lift closed and began to descend.

"If everything goes bad," began Rogers.

"Let's not discuss that."

After a time, the doors dinged open and they stepped out into a poorly lit hall. One of the doors lowered down opened and a tall man stepped out.

"Greetings," said Fury.

"Heya, boss," greeted Tony, walking down the hall with Rogers beside him. "Or, ex-boss, rather."

"What can I do for you gentlemen?"

"We heard you got your hands on a certain someone." He came to a stop. "Is that a new eyepatch?"

Fury ignored the last question. "You two aren't a part of the Initiative any longer, so you're not privy to that information."

"I'm sorry. Are you talking about the certain someone or the eyepatch?"

If that annoyed him, he didn't show it. "You two should leave." He turned and started to walk away.

"I find it interesting that the elevator let us down. Since we're not working here anymore. Seems almost like an invitation to me."

Fury stopped and turned around. "You coming back?"

"That depends. Do you have Loki locked up in here somewhere?"

There was a pause. "No."

"How about locked up anywhere?"

"No."

"Then I guess we're done."

He turned and began to walk back towards the elevator. Rogers walked beside him, as taut as one of Hawkeye's bowstrings.

"Give Sigrid my best," called Fury.

"No idea what you're talking about," replied Tony, but he stopped and turned around.

"Yes, you do. She was seen getting into your car and going to your flat."

"I guess you're sending people there right now?"

"Do I look stupid? You probably have more tech guarding that place than the President has Secret Servicemen."

"Yeah, but also smarter."

Fury smiled a little. "How about a trade?"

"What kind of a trade?"

"My sources tell me that Loki has lost his power. Makes him useless. If you bring me Sigrid, I'll give you Loki."

"Pretty lousy trade."

"Yeah, but I know she'll want to make it."

"You said you didn't have him."

"It's only a matter of time. I'll contact you when we get him."

Tony glanced at Steve, who was staring Fury down like he was a modern-day Hitler. Tony really did not want to be on the receiving end of that stare. He turned back to Fury. "Deal."

Steve looked at him, aghast. Tony gave him the barest of glances before turning and walking back to the lift. Once inside, he said, "When we get into the car."

They were silent until they got back into the vehicle and were moving through the traffic once more. Only then did Steve explode.

"What were you thinking?" he demanded. "We can't give him Sigrid."

"Steve," Tony said with exaggerated patience, "we're not actually going to give him Sigrid. We'll just go to the switch, kick some serious ass, get Loki, and go home. Sigrid will cry, we'll have done our good deed for the day, and everyone goes home happy."

"Except Fury will be expecting that."

"Please tell me if you have a better idea."

Steve looked down for a long moment before returning his gaze back to Tony. "You know you'll have to tell her."

"Me? I think you'd be better at it."

"You tell her or I'll tell Pepper about the porn on your computer."

"How did you know about that?"

"Tony..."

"Okay, okay, fine."


	4. I Have a Plan

I heard the sound of the front door opening and closing, followed by the rumble of men's voices. Concentrating, I heard Happy telling Tony and Steve I had gone to the guest room to rest. I went into the bathroom and rinsed my face with cold water. Taking the pregnancy test and its box, I laid them in the bathtub and whispered the appropriate words. Fire flamed as they ignited. In a matter of moments, there was only ash, which I rinsed down the drain.

After that, I left the rooms and joined the men in the living room. Steve was standing by the door at parade rest, something he probably did without even realizing. Tony looked up over the bar between the dining area and kitchen and I heard the tinkling of ice falling into a glass.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Does Fury have Loki?" I countered.

"No."

"Does he know where Loki is."

"He seems pretty confident in finding him."

"Sigrid," said Steve, "you need to tell us how you think Loki got away. It might help us know where he's going or how likely Fury's men will capture him."

I rubbed my hands together. "I've been thinking about that and the only thing... Before I tell you, I need your promise."

"Anything."

Tony came to me, giving Steve a hard look. "Maybe you should tell us first what you want." He sat on the couch, a glass of some dark liquor in his hand.

"I need you to promise to not reveal this to anyone. I'm seriously trusting you."

"You have my word," said Steve, "and Tony's. Right?"

Tony shrugged as he sipped his drink. "Yeah, sure."

I grimaced before continuing. "Everyone has their weakness. Take Thor's hammer from him and you just have a large man with muscles. Blind Hawkeye and you just have a guy who used to be an archer."

"And Loki?"

"Never mind that. My magic is based on the principles of fire and the elements that are friendly with it. For example, I could easily manipulate air to hold you back, Tony. My enemy is water. Specifically running water. I can use some of my magic but not nearly to the same degree and, sometimes, it can cancel me out entirely."

"Wait. You made the sprinklers go off at the airport."

"By making them think, for a moment, that there was a fire. But I also didn't use any magic while the water was running. That was just to clear the building and I knew the water would be turned off in short order once the system realized there was no fire. Besides, you two didn't know what the water did, and I still had my strength to fall back on. As well as the fact that you were both underestimating me."

Steve spoke up, "We both still remember you as the girl who worked in the kitchens and brought honey on occasion."

"Well. I'm not her anymore, am I?" I spread my hands. "When we settled into our cottage, I cast wards around the perimeter of my property. On one end, a river crosses our boundary line. I tried for days but every ward I cast dissolved over the water. The ward would merely pick up on the other side. As Loki taught me better, stronger wards, I would try again. But I never succeeded."

"And he knew this?" asked Tony.

"I never told him but he's not exactly a simpleton. His power is gone, not his intelligence."

"Why not move, then? And what about your bees?"

"Bees go to sleep in the winter. And, I didn't think he would run. I trusted him."

"Well, glad to see that worked out."

I clenched my fists, trying to resist the urge to set Stark's shoes on fire.

"Tony," admonished Steve.

"He had a good reason," I said huskily. "Loki wouldn't have betrayed my trust in him if there wasn't a really good reason." I cleared my throat. "Best I can figure, he floated down the river to bypass my wards."

"In the middle of winter."

"He still has his immortality."

"Yeah, but still-"

"I know, Steve." I took a deep breath. "I think he went to go face Fury. That's the only reason I can come up with it. He did it to-"  _To give me and any children we have freedom._ "He did it for me. How did things go with Fury anyhow?"

The moment I mentioned him, the tension in the room ratcheted up. I looked over at Steve, who was boring a hole with his eyes into Tony. Tony stared into his high ball glass like it contained the next day's stock market report.

"Tony," I said, hearing my voice crack and hating myself for it.

"We made a deal," he replied.

"What kind of deal?"

Steve stepped forward. "The kind we don't intend on going through with."

I took a deep breath, not letting my eyes leave Tony. "What. Kind. Of deal."

"Fury," said Stark, "wants you in exchange for Loki. He feels that he's going to find him very soon—which we now know will happen since lover boy is flinging himself headlong into the mouth of the lion-and when that happens, we're to make the swap."

"Why doesn't he want to keep Loki?"

"He seems to know Loki doesn't have his abilities."

"How could he possibly know that?"

"He said he had sources."

I swore. "No, he didn't. Dammit, Tony, Fury was guessing. He knew Loki was alive, knew that Odin must have let him go, and guessed that Odin had taken away his power. When you didn't deny it, he knew he was right."

"Well. Yeah."

Steve groaned, covering his face with his hand. "I should have seen that."

"It's okay. We all have our off days."

In frustration, I began to pace around the room. "Now what?"

"When Fury calls, we go to make the swap. Only we kick his ass, grab Loki, and run for it. You're supposed to be some kind of demi-goddess. This should be a walk in the park."

"It's more complicated than that," spoke up Steve. "Loki sees her, he's going to do something stupid. Hell, he's already planning stupid and we don't even know what."

"He's not capable of doing anything."

"Not with magic or science or whatever the hell it is. But he's smart and he'll use that to his advantage to keep Sigrid safe. And if everything goes to pieces, he'll come after us."

The two men continued to argue as Happy stood to the side looking like he wished he had a taser in case things got ugly. As I walked around the room, an idea began to form in my mind. My right hand twitched as I fought the urge to rub my lower abdomen. This was risky and Loki would have a fit if he knew what I planned to do in my "condition". But there was no other way. I had to protect him and keep the wrath of Odin from destroying us all.

"Wait," I said.

The two men kept arguing. With a sigh of frustration, I slapped my hands together, making all the lights in the building go out. With another slap, they came back up, and the boys stared at me.

"Talk about clap on, clap off," remarked Stark.

I ignored him. "I have a plan. But it's reckless and crazy."

"Well," said Steve, "that just means it'll probably work."

#

Loki finished the final touches on his weapon. The wind blew against the shelter he had erected and he was grateful for the fire crackling nearby.

His plan was elegant in its simplicity. If all went well, he would go home to Sigrid and they could live their lives in peace. Well, peace after she was done yelling at him. His heart clenched as he thought about how worried she must be for him. For the hundredth time, he regretted not leaving a note of some kind.

He looked up, past the edge of his shelter and through the trees, at the handful stars he could see, twinkling against the fabric of the night sky. They were not stars he recognized and homesickness rolled over him. Some days, he desperately missed Asgard. If he and Sigrid were there now, they would be fast asleep in his chambers. Maybe with one of the large wolfhounds asleep at the foot of the bed.

Shaking his head, he slipped the weapon into its cloth bag and crawled into his sleeping bag. He doubted he would ever walk the halls of Asgard again. But after tomorrow, at least Sigrid would be safe.


	5. Preparations

"So," said Tony, "that's the plan."

"Yes," I replied.

Stark laughed a little. "It's really crazy."

"Yep."

"Do you think it'll work?"

"Do you have a better idea? Why are you two even helping us? I never did get an explanation on that."

Steve said, "Like I said. We still think of you as the girl who worked in the kitchen."

"And," said Tony, "I hate being lied to."

"So," I said, "one part payback and one part protection."

"Something like that." He set the glass on the table in front of him. "One more question before this powwow breaks up. How come you just didn't trace the wards along the river, instead of trying to cross it?"

"Because I trusted Loki."

#

The next morning, Loki left his camp and hiked several miles into the nearest city. The name of the place meant nothing to him. It only mattered that he had a signal for the prepaid cell phone he had purchased weeks ago.

Certain things about Midgard fascinated him. Cell phones were one. The Internet was another. He had gotten a job at the village's library partially to provide for Sigrid, but mostly so he could learn. And in his time at the library, he had soaked in information like a sponge, though he did focus on learning two tasks in particular. And now he was about to reap the fruit of his labor.

He walked to a nearby park. It was the middle of a workday, schools were still in session, and a new layer of snow covered the ground. He seemed to be the only one there. Taking out the phone, he dialed the number he had memorized.

A few moments later, a gruff voice said, "This is Fury."

"Hello," Loki said.

"Who is this?"

"You don't recognize my voice? I'm crushed."

"Loki."

"The one and only."

"How did you get this number?"

"From a practice I believe you call 'hacking'."

"Hmm. What do you want?"

"A conversation."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"Either tell me what you want, now or no deal."

"I have an offer."

"What kind of an offer?"

"An offer of power, Mr. Fury. Unlimited power. A power that will make the tesseract look like a cheap parlor trick."

"And you can tell me how to get this?"

"I can. I did live in Asgard for some time. I am acquainted with all her treasures. And all her back doors."

"Why should I believe you?"

"Why shouldn't you?"

"You want me to answer alphabetically?"

"Very funny. And very true. However, you have nothing to lose from this conversation."

"And what would you get out of this?"

"Freedom and autonomy."

"Hm."

There was silence on the other line, though Loki thought he heard a man's voice. Perhaps whoever was running the trace.

"I know you've found me," Loki said.

"Really."

"There's a power plant outside of this town. If you're interested, meet me there tonight. Midnight." And he hung up the phone before Fury had a chance to say anything else.

Walking down the path, he chucked the phone into the nearest bin and headed towards the plant in order to get ready.

#

Tony hung up the phone and went into the dining area, where Steve was cleaning his weapon. "Where's Sigrid?" he asked.

"In the guest bedroom. Was that Fury?"

"Yep."

"So we're on."

He nodded. "Tonight. Midnight."

"Appropriate, I guess." He began to reassemble the weapon. "What do you think Loki plans to do?"

"I don't know. The guy's crazy. He might be planning on blowing up the place."

"That could kill him, too. I don't think he would."

"Why not?"

"If I had a wife like Sigrid, I wouldn't."

"Yeah, but you're sane."

Steve shrugged and Tony watched him for a few moments.

"Well," Stark said, "I guess I'll go tell her."

The door to the guest bedroom was closed when he approached and Tony knocked softly. A muffled voice said, "Enter."

He opened the door. Sigrid stood by the window, staring out. It was snowing again. "Hey," he said.

She turned. "Hey."

"Fury just called. We'll be meeting him at midnight at a power plant about an hour from here."

"All right."

Tony walked into the room, coming to stand in front of her. "Why don't you just cast a spell to find him?"

"It's not that simple. Besides, if Loki gets it out of his system now, then maybe..."

"You told me that Odin will come down on you like a ton of bricks if Loki screws up again. If things go south—or even if they go right—how do you know he isn't going to kill you both?"

She smiled a strange mysterious smile. "I know."

Tony stared at her a moment, thinking about forcing it out of her. Instead, he just nodded. "All right. Get your rest. You're going to need it."


	6. Revenge

Loki waited in the shadows of the courtyard-like area, the machines of the power plant humming around him. SHIELD made sure all the workers were somewhere else, something Loki had expected. He looked around the area, at all the pipes and buildings and strange equipment. If all went well, Sigrid and he would be free. Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders when he saw a dark vehicle pulling up.

The gates opened and the car (a sedan was the term, he believed) glided into the yard, stopping just inside the courtyard. The doors popped open and Fury with three other men stepped out. They were all armed, of course.

Fury looked around and the three men spread out. Loki stepped out of the shadows. "Good evening," he said.

"Good evening," replied Fury, walking forward. They met in the courtyard's center. "You look well. Life on Midgard must suit you."

"It has its advantages."

"You know, I really did believe Sigrid for a little while, that you were dead. Then one of our operatives spotted you in London. Or someone who looked an awful lot like you."

"I suppose we got careless."

"You don't do careless."

"Perhaps, then, I wanted to be found."

Fury nodded toward the bag Loki held. "What do you have there?"

"This?" Loki held it up. "This is a taste of what Odin's armory has to offer. I found it in a burial mound. Apparently, Thor and his cronies left it by accident and the locals treated it as a holy artifact." He opened the bag and drew out a round, heavy disc, much like one of Sigrid's compacts. The domed top glowed a dull blue and runes were etched on the filigree along the edge.

"What is it?"

"Power. You'll see what I mean once you open it." He tucked the bauble into the bag and held it out. "If it suits your liking, contact me."

"And how do I do that?"

"You'll know." He smiled at Fury.

"I have a better idea."

The three men drew their weapons and closed in while Fury backed away and drew his own. The leveled the barrels at him. Loki scowled. "What is this?"

"I have a surprise of my own. Should be arriving any moment." The sound of a car approaching drew his attention over his shoulder. "Oh, there they are now."

Another dark sedan entered the power plant. The doors opened and out stepped Rogers, Stark, and Sigrid. Loki's heart dropped when he saw her. She was bound, gagged, and blindfolded. Rogers guided her to the circle and she stumbled as if drugged. Loki could almost feel the situation spinning out of control as he struggled to understand how this could have happened. Stark and Rogers must have lured Sigrid and betrayed her.

He suddenly wondered if Heimdall was watching and if he had sent for Odin. Perhaps the whole court would gather to watch the downfall of wicked ol' Loki, killed by one of his own traps. How ironic.

"What. Is. This," he repeated, his voice low and even while his mind scrambled for a plan. But without his powers, how could he do anything?

"This is a trade," explained Fury. "We get the girl. You get to go leave in one piece."

"What if I don't wish to cooperate?"

Fury stepped behind and to the side of Sigrid and pointed his gun at the back of her head. "Then she dies."

His rationality told him to do it, that he would find a way to get her back. Perhaps he could petition Thor for help. But that rationality was being eaten away by a near-insane rage. He only wanted to save Sigrid and kill everyone else. Tears threaten to blur his vision but he blinked them away.

"You will regret this," he said, his voice low and dangerous.

"I doubt that." He pulled back the hammer of the gun. "Choose, Loki. Is she going to live or die?"

The  _click_  of the gun shattered the fragile hold he held over his anger and several things happened at once.

He took two running steps toward Fury when he pulled the trigger. The other men fired as well and he felt several bullets slam into him, breaking his stride. Steve tried to block Loki but he snapped a punch into the man's throat and tackled Fury. The cloth bag went flying and the bauble fell out, popping open.

Then the whole world went up into flame.

#

When Loki opened his eyes, he laid on his back, staring up at stars. He immediately felt pain. Raising his hand, he saw blood glinting in the dim light. He reached down and slowly inspected the wounds with his hands. They felt like flesh wounds and grazes. A miracle, really, since these were supposed to be trained agents. What was the term? Ah, yes, crack shots.

Then he heard the sound of sirens and shouting.

He didn't want to sit up and look. He just wanted to stare at the stars forever. Slowly, he sat up.

He laid on the slope of a tall hill behind the power plant. Flames engulfed the plant and another explosion rocked it. Fire trucks and rescue works looked like ants compared with the blaze as they tried to combat it.

How did he end up on the hill? The only explanation was that the blast had thrown him clear. Stranger things had happened, after all. He had designed the bauble to explode when opened. It had taken months of research to figure out and had elicited a small amount of pride in him, that he could do something like that without so-called magic. But all he felt was heartsick and dread as he watched the flames below.

He tried to reconstruct the events in his mind. Could Sigrid have been thrown clear?

No.

Fury had pulled the trigger before he dropped the bauble.

No.

She had been standing right there and hadn't moved at all when Fury pulled back that hammer.

_No._

The only conclusion, then, was that Sigrid was dead.

The truth came crashing down on him and he buried his face in his hands, gripping his hair. He screamed his anguish. Hot tears rushed out and he sobbed, harder than he had in his whole life. His heart broke and dissolved. He cried and screamed until he felt hollow and soulless.

When the last tear faded, Loki stumbled to his feet. His wounds had clotted but he still ached. He hardly paid any attention, though, as he made his slow, agonizing descent down the hill. He didn't know where he was going. He just needed to be somewhere else, anywhere else. He came out by a road. Hearing a car approaching, he stopped, hidden behind a tree.

The car slid past and he had only a second to see: Tony Stark on the passenger side, speaking over the shoulder of it while someone else drove. The rest of the windows were too tinted to make at who he was addressing.

Questions bubbled up in the back of his mind (was that a different car; how had they survived the blast; who was Stark speaking to?) but they were wiped away with a singular thought: they murdered his Sigrid. His innocence Sigrid, who smelled like honey no matter the season.

And, come Hel or Ragnorak, Loki would have his revenge.


	7. Caught Up in Rage and Fire

When Sigrid woke up, she didn't recognize the room. For a moment, she contented herself with staring up at the sunlight slanting across the ceiling. Then a memory of fire scorched through her mind and she sat bolt upright. A red-haired woman sitting beside her jerked, dropping the book in her hand.

"Oh, you're awake," said the woman.

"Where am I? Who are you? Where's Loki?"

"Calm down. You're safe. I'm Pepper Potts."

"Tony's girlfriend."

Pepper smiled. "Yeah. You're in Stark Tower. In the medical unit."

Sigrid looked around, seeing the medical equipment and a glass wall, through which she could see people in lab coats walking down a hall. "Stark Tower."

"Yeah. And the baby is fine."

She looked back at her. "How...?"

"The doctors figured it out pretty quickly. They say you're just a month along."

"Oh." Her hands went to her stomach.

"Congratulations."

"Where's Loki?" Her voice cracked. A memory danced along the edge of her mind but she refused to acknowledge it even as she asked the question.

The smile faded from Pepper's lips. "They looked for him, Sigrid. They looked for him as long as they could. But they didn't find him. He must have... Well, there was an explosion."

The memories swarmed back. The plan, though crazy, had been blindingly simple.

After creating as lifelike an illusion as she could muster, she wrapped herself in invisibility and scaled the fence on the opposite side of the plant. She was to grab Loki, make him invisible as well, and they would escape, leaving Tony and Steve to find their own way out. But Fury had done the unthinkable and it had triggered Loki to lunge at him just as she reached for his arm. And then there was the explosion. Sigrid didn't think, only reacted. She threw up as large of a shield as she could to save everyone but she knew she had missed someone or some people. Fire was her element and she felt death in the flames.

 _Death_.

"Honey, you need to calm down."

Pepper's voice cut through her racing thoughts. The heart monitor attached to her went off the scale and nurses rushed into the room. They babbled about how she needed to calm down. It wasn't good for the baby.

_The baby._

Tears broke the dam and she leaned against Pepper, sobbing. Wrapping her arms around her stomach, she held on to the only thing of Loki she had left.

#

_Three days later..._

"How is she?" asked Steve.

Tony looked up from the transmission he was reassembling. They were alone in the basement garage of Stark Tower.

"She won't see me," continued Steve, leaning against Tony's Corvette.

"What makes you think she'll see me?" He returned to his task.

"Nothing. I just thought... What do the doctors say?"

"Doctors say she's fine. They let her take one of the guest rooms in the penthouse. Pepper tells me she's talking about going to Florida. To live with her sister and cousin, she said."

The men fell silent, the only sound was Tony's ratchet on the bolts. Steve's mind flew back to that mission and for the thousandth time, he wondered if there was something he could have done differently.

"I sent men back there," Tony said suddenly. "They didn't find anything."

"What about in the plant? Where there, um, bodies?"

"No. There were signs that there had been bodies but not enough to scrape together to put in a box."

"Damn." Steve scrubbed his face. "I still can't believe she went on that mission pregnant."

Tony stood, wiping his hands on a blue cloth. "She wasn't going to just sit back while Loki was in danger."

"What do you think the kid will be like?"

"I don't know. Without Loki around, it might have a chance."

"That's harsh, Tony."

"The guy was crazy. You saw how he was in that power plant."

"Because he thought Sigrid was in danger."

"What, are you defending him now?"

"No. I'm just saying, he had reasons." He straightened. "Listen, what would you have done if it was Pepper? Huh?" He looked into his friend's eyes until he looked away.

"Yeah. Well. It's over." He tossed the cloth onto the bench. "What I would like to know is why Odin hasn't come by. Didn't Sigrid say that she was supposed to go back one day?"

"Maybe Odin's attention is elsewhere."

"Maybe. I don't know. Gives me a bad feeling is all."

At that moment, all the lights went red and JARVIS chirped, "Intru-"

Everything went dark for a second before the emergency lights came up.

Tony said, "What?"

"I'll go check on-"

"You're not going anywhere," said a harsh, slithery voice.

They turned. Loki stood blocking the exit and he was pointing a gun at them. His clothes looked torn, bloody, and dirty in the emergency lighting.

"Loki," began Steve.

"Silence. Come closer, with your hands up. I'm going to make you pay for what you've done."

"Listen, Loki," said Tony.

"I said SHUT UP." He shot the gun off to the side and pointed it back at them. "Now do as I say."

#

Sigrid frowned when the emergency lights went up. "What's happened?"

Pepper looked up from her magazine. "I don't know. JARVIS, what's happened?"

No answer came. It was late at night and all the staff had gone home. "Maybe we should check with security."

"Yeah." Pepper got up from her seat and went to the intercom. They were in the penthouse and had just finished watching a movie. Pepper pressed the button. "Can anyone tell me what's going on?"

There was no answer. Pepper tried again, but no one answered.

"What do we do now?" asked Sigrid, getting up.

"Normally, I'd call Coulson."

"He's in London. Torchwood, I heard."

"Yeah. Come on. Maybe the security cameras are still working."

They went into a small side room inside of which was a security console displaying a dozen computer screens.

"We're not seriously going to look at each floor and each room," Sigrid said.

"No. Just the basement."

"Why not call Tony on his cell?"

"Because he turns it off when he goes down there." She called up the camera. "Oh my goodness."

Tony and Steve were standing with their hands up, facing a man with a gun. A shiver went down Sigrid's back. Something about that stance looked familiar.

"Can you get a shot of his face?" Sigrid asked.

"L-let me see." She tapped away at the keyboard and pulled up the camera from the other end of the room.

"Zoom in."

When she did, she gasped. "That's-that's Loki! I thought..." She looked up at Sigrid. "He didn't die."

Sigrid didn't dare let herself feel what was happening in her heart or she would explode. "I need to get down there."

"How? The elevators cut off when the emergency power kicked in."

"Use cameras to check on security. I know how to get to the basement from here."

"Sigrid, he has a gun!"

"And he won't hurt me. Now do what I said."

Turning, she ran from the room and to the elevator that also doubled as the penthouse's front door. Taking a deep breath, she dug her fingers into the doors and slowly pried them apart, the steel making a horrible screeching sound as she pushed. Once it was open wide enough, she slipped through into the elevator. Pepper came out of the security room.

"It looks like he just tied up the security," she said. "What are you doing?"

"Making a way."

"Tony isn't going to like-"

"Go. Take the stairs and untie security. By the time you get there, this will all be over."

"That's over thirty stories."

"Then change shoes." Pointing at the floor, she concentrated, focusing on the tip of her finger outward to the floor. After a few moments, a hot circle began to melt through the bottom of the floor, burning through the carpet. The smell of scorched rug and metal stung her nose. It took only a minute. The round section of floor fell away.

"What are you doing?" asked Pepper.

Sigrid smiled up at her. "Magic." Down below, the round section clanged as it crashed at the bottom.

And then she jumped through the hole.


	8. A Bargain Must Be Made

"Loki," said Steve in his most reasonable tone, "Sigrid is alive."

"Don't lie to me," Loki said.

"He's right," chimed in Tony. "She survived the explosion."

"She was killed before the explosion even happened!" A tear fell from his eye, rolling down his cheek.

"That was just an illusion. You taught her how to do those."

"I would have recognized it as her illusion."

"She did her best with it. She's upstairs." Tony began to ease forward. "If you'll just go upstairs with us-"

"What was she even doing with you!" snarled Loki. His whole body was tense, a taut line on the verge of snapping.

"We were helping her," said Steve, his mind racing to gauge the distance between them and if he had a shot at getting the weapon away from Loki. "We heard what Fury was doing and we rescued her. We agreed to help her because we felt that Fury was wrong. You have to trust us."

"Trust." He spat the word as if it were dirty. "She trusted me to keep her safe."

"How did we survive the explosion, then? If Sigrid wasn't alive to rescue us, how did we survive?"

The inconsistency made Loki hesitate. Steve could see the wheels working in his head.

"This is what happened, Loki," Tony said. "Sigrid created an illusion and made herself invisible. She was going to snatch you and run. But then all hell broke loose and she kept the blast from destroying us. We called Happy, that's my go-to guy, and he came and picked us up. We looked for you, Loki, but we couldn't find you."

"And Fury?"

"No sign of him," said Steve. "We figure he died in the fire." He could see things being kicked up by wind in the hallway as the elevator doors were pushed open. The sound-proofing of the room kept them from hearing it and he tried not to stare as Sigrid emerged from the elevator.

"Like you thought I died." Loki sneered. "No doubt this is a part of his plan. You are all guilty."

"Loki," said Sigrid's voice over the intercom.

The rage faded from Loki's face and he went still. "This is a trick."

"I promise," said Steve. "I promise, it isn't a trick."

"Loki," repeated Sigrid. "Loki, please turn around."

He started to tremble and Steve resisted the urge to lunge for the weapon. The trembling made it so much more likely that it would go off. And, at that moment, it was pointed straight at Tony's forehead.

"Loki, please."

Slowly, like a ballet move in slow motion, he lowered the weapon and turned. When he saw her, pressed against the glass and crying, he made a sound like a groan and a moan. It came up from the depths of him and nearly made Steve's heart break to hear it. It was longing and relief, pain and release, all rolled into one. The gun clattered to the floor.

Tony turned and ran to his console and began tapping on the interface. Loki went to the glass and pressed his hands against it.

"I thought," he whispered. "I thought you were dead."

"No," she said. "Fury shot an illusion. He didn't shoot me."

"So, you did shield everyone."

"But they couldn't find you." She choked back a sob. "They couldn't find you and I thought I had failed."

The main lights turned on and the glass door slid open. She fell into his arms and they sank to the floor, clinging to one another.

#

Loki couldn't believe he held her again. It was like his whole world had slid back into place. It felt like his heart beat again and that he could breathe once more. Sigrid turned her face to look up at him and he kissed her. What was meant to be chaste and sweet because fierce and demanding. She made little moaning sounds and he shivered, not realizing until then how much he had missed that. After a long moment, they broke apart.

"What happened?" asked Sigrid. "Why did you leave the cottage?"

"I realized Fury was on the verge of finding us. I felt that if I eliminated him-"

"And what of Odin's judgment? If you killed Fury, what would stop him from executing me and imprisoning you forever?"

"Odin would not call such a judgment. He would know I was protecting us."

"How can you be so sure? Loki, you could have at least told me."

"You would have tried to stop me."

"Damn right I would have! Didn't you for a moment think what would have happened to us if you had died?"

"Us?"

"Loki, I'm pregnant."

He opened and closed his mouth in shock. Licking his lips, he tried speaking again. "When did you discover this?"

"Shortly after you went missing." She stood. "Loki, I trusted you. How could you have betrayed that trust?"

Her voice came out broken and strangled and he nearly died to hear it. This was not at all what he meant to have happened. He only wanted the best for them. He only ever wanted the best. Loki stumbled to his feet, grimacing at the pain in his side.

"You're hurt," she said, standing and pulling on his shirt.

"No, I'm fine." He tried to push her hands away but she swatted them, yanking up the fabric.

"Dear Heaven," she said. "You've been shot. More than once."

"Not badly."

"Has anyone looked at this?"

"I tended to it myself."

"I don't have any of my honey here. Tony has doctors. They—"

"I will be fine."

"Will you stop that!"

He blinked at her. "Stop what?"

"Stop acting like you have to take care of yourself." Tears began to fall in earnest again. "Stop acting like you have to do everything yourself. Stop acting like the only person you can trust, who can take care of you, is yourself because I..." She sobbed, backing away from him when he reached for her. "Because I love you, Loki Odinson. I would die a thousand deaths for you. I would stand by you through eternity if I had to. I love you that much. So stop trying to go at it alone!"

Loki couldn't think of a defense. He couldn't think of a way to make any of this not his fault, because of all of it was his fault. And he saw that, completely and utterly. Staring at Sigrid's tears, Loki finally saw himself for what he was, and he did not like what he saw.

"I will," he said hoarsely. He reached for her and this time she didn't back away. He wrapped her in his arms. "I will stop. I love you, Sigrid. I'm sorry I betrayed you."

"I'm sorry to break this up," Stark said suddenly. "But it seems the night isn't over yet."

"What now?" asked Rogers.

"Thor's just entered the building. And he brought friends."

"No," sobbed Sigrid. "They've come for you. Loki, they've come for you."

#

They met Thor, Sif, and the warriors three in one of the large conference rooms on the first floor. Sif, Volstagg, Hogun, and Fandral stood behind Thor while, with feet planted and Mjolnir in hand, he faced his brother.

"Heimdall sees all, brother," Thor said.

Loki stood, tired and in pain (both physical and otherwise), with one arm around Sigrid and his head held high. Rogers, Stark, and the woman called Pepper stood behind him.

"And what has loyal Heimdell seen?" he asked.

"He has seen you scheme and lie, brother. All your usual tricks."

"To protect us," yelled Sigrid.

"Sigrid," said Loki, his voice as soft as a butterfly's wing. "Please be quiet. Let Thor speak." He turned back to his brother. "Go on."

Thor shifted, clearly thrown off by Loki's calm demeanor and cooperation. "You've also killed again. Odin has ordered your and Sigrid's return to Asgard, to face his judgment."

"And what do you think that judgment will be?"

"In accordance with his agreement with Sigrid, she will face death for your crimes, past and present, while you will face eternal imprisonment." Sorrow filled his face. "I am sorry, brother."

"You can't," interjected Sigrid. "I'm pregnant. Loki may not be a son by blood, but he is by adoption. Will Odin really murder his grandchild?"

Horror filled his face. "You're lying, to protect yourself and renege on the agreement."

Tony stepped forward. "If I may? Sigrid isn't lying. Our doctors figure she's about...a month along."

"Then no doubt Odin will decide to allow her to live long enough to give birth to the child."

Sigrid began to speak but Loki turned her to him. He knelt on one knee. "For too long have I allowed others to pay for my crimes. For too long have I run. I have made a most grievous error and there is no undoing my mistakes. This isn't just about me, or about the two of us." He laid his hands over her womb. "This little one never asked for any of this to happen, and I will not have his mother taken from him because of me. Father was right. I always had a choice. And this is mine."

"I don't understand," she said softly.

He looked up at her. "Thor will because this is the most ancient of our laws. Sigrid, my Sigrid, never doubt that I love you, completely and utterly."

And before Thor could realize what he was about, or before Sigrid began to piece it together, he drew the knife hidden in a sheath in his boot and, in the same motion, plunged it into his heart.


	9. Redemption

Sigrid stared with horror as Loki collapsed to the floor. She dropped to her knees beside him, her hands suddenly clumsy as she pushed him onto his back. The knife's hilt protruded from his chest as blood welled and dripped to the floor, pooling. His beautiful glacier blue eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling.

There was commotion around her. People were yelling. She didn't realize she was still crying until the tears splashed onto the back of her hands.

She yanked the knife out, letting it clatter to the floor. She pressed her hands to the wound. He was already growing cold. Calling on her magic, she didn't know what she was going to do. She only knew she couldn't let him die.

Calloused hands grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away. "Sigrid, no." It was Thor.

She struggled. "I have to save him!"

"He's already gone."

"No! I can bring him back."

"You can't!"

"Why not?" She turned to him, her bloody hands held up in fists as he grasped her forearms.

"The prisoner withholds the right to execute himself."

"Wh-what?"

"Loki was right. It is the most ancient of our laws. It is allowed—and considered more honorable—for a prisoner to execute himself with his own blade if his shame is great enough."

"But, that's not a part of the agreement."

"This law supersedes any agreements. Loki knew that. Sigrid, you cannot bring him back."

Sobbing, she collapsed against Thor's armor-plated shoulder. "It's a stupid law."

"Yes." His voice was thick with tears. "A very stupid law."

For a long moment, he held her as she cried. Then, something shifted in the air, a current of energy flowing over them. Thor and the others, not steeped in magic, did not feel it, but Sigrid did. She pulled herself out of his arms, looking around for the source.

Loki's body began to glow as the air became supercharged with magic, making everyone's hair stand on end. The light brightened until his body was engulfed and they had to shield their eyes. There was an almost audible  _crack_  and  _boom_. The light went out. The energy dissipated. Sigrid lowered her hands.

Loki laid on the floor dressed in his green, gold, and silver clothing. His hair, which before had been cut in a more Midgardian fashion, was long once more. He looked as if he was sleeping.

Hesitantly, she reached out and touched his cheek. It was warm. Gasping, she fell down on top of him, pressing her ear to his chest. He was breathing and his heart drummed a steady beat.

"My Loki," she whispered. Raising up, she kissed his warm lips and, after a moment, he kissed back, wrapping his arms around her, holding her tightly as if he would never let go.

#

Loki and Sigrid stepped out of the observatory onto the Bifrost, hand-in-hand. Behind them walked Thor, Sif, and the warriors three, who, though once sent to collect a dangerous prisoner, now formed an honor guard. Frigga and Odin stood before them. Sleipnir and other saddled horses stood behind them. And beyond  _them_ stood what appeared to be all of Asgard, gathered to watch. They lined the Bifrost with an open avenue running down the center of the crowd.

"Father," began Loki, but Odin cut off his words with an embrace. When he stepped back, both men had tears in their eyes.

"Welcome home, my son," Odin said.

Frigga came forward and embraced him as well. "We are so proud of you." She turned to Sigrid. "And welcome home to you, too, daughter of Sigyn." They embraced. When they parted, Sigrid gave Loki a look both meaningful and questioning.

"Ah, yes," said Loki. "Father, I would like to make an announcement." He took Sigrid's hand and drew her close. "My wife is with child."

Odin's eye widened, followed closely by a broad smile. "Wonderful news!" He also embraced Sigrid before turning to the crowd. In a thunderous voice, he cried, "Today we welcome home a prince of Asgard! My beloved son has returned to us, having discharged the debt laid by his crimes. He comes to begin fresh and new. Even more so, he comes with a wife who will, in a few months' time, deliver a new royal child!"

The crowd erupted into cheers. Sigrid looked up at Loki, whose face was a mask but his eyes betrayed the wealth of emotion he felt. Everyone had always cheered for Odin or Thor. Until that day, no one had cheered for Loki.

Odin mounted Sleipnir, followed by everyone else. Two soldiers stepped forward to make sure Sigrid mounted her horse without falling over. She scowled at that. Loki laughed at her expression.

"Get used to it," he said with a cheeky wink.

"I can get on a horse by myself just fine," she retorted, though a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

"Yes, you can, but you carry a precious commodity. The soldiers are charged with guarding all the members of the Royal House." And he laughed again at the face she pulled.

Frigga looked over her shoulder. "How wonderful to hear that."

"Hear what, Mother?"

"Your laugh. I thought it was gone forever."

"I believe it may be here to stay."

Frigga smiled and turned back. They followed Odin down the avenue between the people, who cheered and threw flowers, the setting sun of Asgard setting everything aflame.


End file.
